LAD #17: Sojourner Truth Speech

Sojourner Truth delivered her speech to the Ohio Women's Convention in Akron to address formally the two primary issues of racist and sixist prejudices which currently plagued the nation. Although some reforms to the rights of women were being made in the North, Truth genuinely exposes the opposition to these reforms and their flawed methods, stating that their are individuals who seek to aid women out of carriages and over ditches, but no one has ever helped her. This, in turn, brings about her moral question; "Ain't [she] a woman?" Primarily she is addressing the issue that these conservtionalists are indirectly attacking minorities through acts of racism. Thus, these individuals do not deem her to be a true woman because she is of a supposedly inferior race. In her defense she cites specific examples that qualify her as a lady, such as she is knowledgable in plowing, farming, and can work, eat, and be as strong as any man, even exceeding these male "superiors" by bearing and enduring the trials of slavery and child bearing. She further qualifies her claim by claiming that the assertion for a supremacy of male intelligence is flawed and should not hold bearings on the universal rights and liberties of a human being. Conclusively, her personal claim completely countered the arguments that any man could ever raise, stating that Christ, the savior of mankind, was spurred from God and a woman, with man having no influence.